Salvation
by Monkeeshines
Summary: When you are apart of a team, there are highs and lows for everyone. Sometimes, those highs and lows are what makes you a team. This book follows how the lives of two intertwine beyond what either thought.


Title: Salvation

Author: Monkeeshines

Rating: R

Summary: When you are a part of a team, there are highs and lows for everyone. Sometimes, those highs and lows are what makes you a team. This book follows how the lives of two intertwine beyond what either thought.

Author's Note: This is a **teaser** for the first book of our series. We are still in the process of final layout and edits. It will be a while before you see further postings for this book/series.

*Monkeeshines is not the work of one but of MANY. It is simply one name to reflect an entire conglomeration of writers/editors/timekeepers/brain-banks/inspiratio nal muses/nit pickers/ hearsayers, naysayers, and a blue armadillo.

Questions, comments, and criticisms are always welcome. If you'd like to have a word, say hi, or see our 'process' (it's highly developed...) everyone is invited to join us in an AIM (aol instant messenger) chatroom titled TAT.

**Prologue**

Fall 1969 - Lake Isabella, California

"Shut up, you asshole!" Face all but yelled at Murdock, pushing himself up off of the sagging mattress that was all this fleabag, middle-of-nowhere hotel had to offer. He took an unsteady step toward the lanky pilot jaw clenched, chapped upper lip curled. Whatever Hannibal and Murdock thought they were going to make him do by dragging him here, Face wanted no part of it.

After all, Murdock wasn't the one trapped in some cheap ass hotel puking his guts up because of someone else's so-called good intentions. And it sure as hell wasn't Face who'd taken off right after dumping Hannibal into a freezing ass shower, leaving him stone cold sober and sick as all hell. No, Face was done. The both of them could take their self-righteous bullshit and get the hell out of his life.

But Murdock, the fuck, just looked at him. Silent and judging, probably, because everything wasn't already fucked up enough.

"What the hell do you know about it?" he demanded. "How many classrooms have you sat in while pampered bastards try to dissect the fucked up shit we've done to survive? Like they have any idea, or any goddamned right to ask what kind of person it takes to do that 'horrible and inhumane' shit. Like those hypocrites would last ten seconds over there!" He could feel the words practically ripping from his throat and couldn't care less. Murdock wanted to know why he'd been shooting up? Thought he'd understand, find some common ground and get Face to walk the straight and narrow again? Well, fuck him. "You wanna know the best part? Huh?"

Face laughed into Murdock's silence, bitter and harsh. "I've sat there trying to figure it out, trying to rationalize the difference between what they're saying and what I did. And you know what? I _can't!_"

Face was more sober than he'd been in months, and already he could feel those damn spectres creeping up on him, hear the desperation in their voices, see the pleas in their eyes. They'd haunted his every waking moment since he'd come back "home" and found himself a foreigner. Soon enough, they'd be dogging his reality as though they'd never left. And Murdock - Murdock, of all people! - had no damn right to force that on him.

He crowded closer, close enough to hit and jab, glaring daggers into Murdock's infuriatingly blank face. "You gonna tell me how I'm supposed to live with that shit and make it okay?" He was close enough to shove him, to plant his hands against his chest and push, and he itched to do just that. "Go ahead, Murdock, be like every other asshole out there that has all the answers I'm supposed to be listening to."

He stopped nose to nose with Murdock and dropped his voice to a growl. "Then you can go fuck yourself 'cause you know as much about what I need to hear as every other fucking mentor, leader, or preacher who's ever lined up to show me see the error of my ways."

Face expected Murdock to flinch, to back down, to equivocate. Instead, Murdock just stared back, expression strange and weirdly fervent, and slowly shook his head.

"That's just it, Face," Murdock said. "I don't know how to live with it."

The slightest of movements flickered in Face's peripheral vision, but he couldn't turn away from that very wrong look on Murdock's face. It wasn't fight or flight, not even anger or disappointment, and he didn't get a chance to sift through his addled brain to place it before Murdock started up again, too calm and too quiet, and with a weird little smile clinging to his lips.

It was a creepy fucking smile.

"I don't know how to live with it and I can't make it stop. It's always there. I know what people are saying, but I got no answers. No reasons. I don't know shit. I don't know why we did anything." Murdock's eyes never left Face's. "Every time I close my eyes, I see a little girl crying. I feel all this blood sliding through my fingers. I see bodies. Carved up, butchered bodies. Wholesale slaughter. The work of a monster, Face. And I know it's me. I'm the monster. Killing and hacking, and it felt good."

For a second, Face could've sworn Murdock was looking straight through him straight into the past, right back to that fucking place Face shot up to forget.

"I don't want it to be true, Facey. I pretend like it's not. But it is and I know it, and I can't make it stop."

Face found himself taking a step back as Murdock closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the wall, breathing slow and deep. His own breath was sharp, rushing in and out with an anxiety Face couldn't place until his searching eyes caught on the gun in Murdock's hand. The pilot's eyes opened and drifted to the weapon. His knuckles turned white around the grip.

"We made a promise, Face."

For a moment, Face wasn't in the hotel room. He was in the jungle, the humidity thick enough to smother him, the ground firm and wet beneath his knees, the coppery stench of blood in his nostrils.

"I just need to know, to be sure," Murdock said, slow and worn. In another place, Face might have wondered how many times Murdock had said these words without ever saying them. "Are you done fighting it? Did the monsters win?"

_Did you fail?_

The laughter bubbled up suddenly, loud and harsh, and cut out just as quick. "_Look_ at me, you stupid fuck!" He jabbed at Murdock's chest. "Yeah, maybe I'm barely hanging on by a thread. Maybe I'm so doped up most of the time I can't feel anything, but I've got those monsters all figured out. I know how to lock them out." He threw his arms out towards Murdock incase the man needed another look at the track marks lining his veins. "Every time I take a fucking hit they're right back where they belong. Is that what you want to hear? Is it?" Spit flew from Face's lips, but Murdock didn't react.

"Or is it that I don't know what to do anymore, is that it? How about the fact that the moment Diz shot me up was the first time in months I felt anywhere near relaxed? That while I was high, those voices finally stopped screaming in my ears and I could close my eyes without seeing it all again?"

But here he was, now, seeing it all again, because Murdock wanted him to feel. Because Murdock couldn't leave well enough alone. Because Murdock was a fucking hypocrite. And Hannibal. Face couldn't even go there. He clenched his fists. "You know what? Fuck you, Murdock." He didn't need this shit and there was a sure way out.

He was midstep to the door when Murdock cut him off, the cool barrel of a service revolver suddenly hard and unforgiving under his chin. Face's breath caught as Murdock stepped in close, eyes going dim and lifeless while Murdock stood there, silent, looking through Face. Tears rolled down Murdock's cheeks.

For a moment, Face didn't know why Murdock was crying. It wasn't Murdock's life Face had turned upside down. It wasn't Face blocking Murdock from getting to the door. It wasn't Face holding a gun under Murdock's chin, just waiting for the word to pull the trigger. But maybe it should have been.

Because, suddenly, it was obvious. It was Sunshine, young and lifeless, blank eyes staring up at him from the mud. It was Murdock, horrified and broken, skittering backward while blood mixed with tears. It was Face, sitting, helpless to do anything but watch as his best friend was taken apart. It was guilt and pain and being stuck, alone, at the mercy of everything and everyone who wanted to take them apart.

It was the end.

"Do it." Face's voice didn't sound like his. He couldn't remember making the decision to speak, but the words fell between them, hollow and distant, betraying his secrets. "I can't beat this. You know that. That's why you're here, right? You've seen it."

"I'm here because you're my best friend, and I made a promise." Murdock nodded fractionally as he spoke, confirmation and agreement and lifeline, all in one. But nothing he said was louder than the click of the hammer cocking back. "I'm sorry for being too late, Facey, and for letting the monster get you."

Face closed his eyes. Tears he hadn't expected warmed streaks down his cheeks as his body shook.

"See you on the other side," Murdock said, low and choked.

And that was it. It would only hurt for a moment, and then everything would be gone. He wasn't expecting Murdock to add, "God forgive me." But he did. Then he pulled the trigger.


End file.
